Death And Disease In Southeast Asia

From a 'decoding' of ancient Balinese myths to the careful computation of mortality rates for the modern Philippines, these essays extend our understanding of South-east Asian history.

Health patterns in Southeast Asia have changed profoundly over the past century. In that period, epidemic and chronic diseases, environmental transformations, and international health institutions have created new connections within the region and the increased interdependence of Southeast Asia with China and India. In this volume leading scholars provide a new approach to the history of health in Southeast Asia. Framed by a series of synoptic pieces on the "Landscapes of Health" in Southeast Asia in 1914, 1950, and 2014 the essays interweave local, national, and regional perspectives. They range from studies of long-term processes such as changing epidemics, mortality and aging, and environmental history to detailed accounts of particular episodes: the global cholera epidemic and the hajj, the influenza epidemic of 1918, WWII, and natural disasters. The writers also examine state policy on healthcare and the influence of organizations, from NGOs such as the China Medical Board and the Rockefeller Foundation to grassroots organizations in Thailand, Indonesia, and the Philippines.

This book explores the experiential and affective dimensions of structural transformation in South Asia through contemporary and historical accounts of life, ageing, illness, and death. The contributions to this book include analyses from various regions in South Asia, and topics discussed uncover how people’s experiences of life, ageing, illness, and death are entangled with the technology of governance, biomedicine, neoliberal restructuring and other national/international policies. Structured in three parts – governance, technology, and citizenship; well-being and restructuring of the social; waiting, hesitation, and hope as attitudes in facing the precariousness and fundamental uncertainty of life – the book brings to light the ways in which people face and continue to engage with their own and others’ lives cautiously, waveringly, but with a sense of hope. A novel contribution to the study of how people struggle or navigate their lives through the conditions of inequity and precariousness in South Asia, this book will be of interest to researchers studying anthropology, sociology, history, medical and development studies of South Asia, as well as to those interested in cultural and social theory.

The contributors to this volume show how the practices of health in Southeast Asia over the past two centuries were mediated by local medical traditions, colonial interests, range of health agents and intermediaries.

Death As The Basic Condition Of Life And As The Ultimate Destiny Of All Men Is Also A Decisive Factor In The Shaping Of Cultures. This Volume Aims At Surveying How Various Cultures (Tribal, Regional And Pan-Indian) Of South Asia Come To Terms With The Horizon Of Dying, Death And The Dead. It Combines The Ethnographic Point Of View, That Stresses The Social And Ritual Forms Related To Death And The Conceptual Sides Which Favour The Idea Of An Agency Of Texts. Moreover, This Book Does Not Just Centre On The Study Of Well-Known Articulate And Self-Projecting Traditions But On Cultures That Lack This Dimension. It Sheds Light On Conceptual Systems, Ritual Prescriptions And Texts, And Their Interaction With The Actual Thinking And Acting Of People. The Great Variety Of Approaches To This Subject Found In This Volume Is A Reflection Of The Diversity Of South Asian Cultures.